


High Hopes

by TheScarletGarden



Series: Drabbles & Short Stories [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bittersweet Ending, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Light Angst, The Long Night, Wishful Thinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 14:25:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13660869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheScarletGarden/pseuds/TheScarletGarden
Summary: To bring an end to the Long Night, Jon and Daenerys have searched the Lands of Always Winter to find the legendary Heart of Winter and ultimately destroy it. It is the last hope for the survival of mankind, but the road to Spring is long and hard...First fic ever written, so be nice! An angsty one-shot with a sorta hopeful/bittersweet ending. Not super tragic, but neither a stroll at Disneyland.





	High Hopes

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Last Verses of the Song](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8195885) by [Doublehex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doublehex/pseuds/Doublehex). 



> Aaaand here we are with my first fic EVAR! Many thanks to LustOnMyFingers for encouraging me and being my beta for this work. A couple things inspired this little one-shot: first of all, one of my favourite songs, High Hopes by Pink Floyd. Secondly, I cannot deny the influence of the fic The Last Verses of the Song by Doublehex. While it wasn't the initial intention, I would be dishonest to deny how much his wonderful one-shot inspired mine. And lastly, this amazing drawing from viianki: https://viianki.deviantart.com/art/Our-Dream-of-Spring-704823302?ga_submit_new=10%3A1505602509

 

It was a blur. Daenerys tried to keep her eyes open, her mind awake, her senses sharp, but it was just so fucking difficult. The air was so cold it seemed to be completely still, frozen particles in the atmosphere all around her, all around them. Her muscles ached terribly, but then her mind started to numb, while the pain subsided.  _It was not good. It was not good at all._  She grasped to the pain, for it meant life, with all her fading strength. The Heart of Winter gleamed with a sort of all-consuming darkness, spreading its black wings all around her, all around them.

It really was a blur. She couldn't keep her eyes open anymore, couldn't feel her body. Everything was just an encompassing darkness, so otherworldly cold she couldn't even remember ever being warm. Her mind strained, and she started to see colours, and bizarre flashes of light, sounds and odours and tastes and the feeling of the tall grass brushing against her naked skin... She saw her memories, so vividly in front of her, scattered images moving restlessly in the back of her mind. Winterfell covered in a thick blanket of whiteness, Dragonstone surrounded by the mist, and the hot sun of Essos, gentled by the light breeze of Meereen and relentless in the excruciating pain of the Red Waste. The sounds of her footsteps resonating against the pavement of Illyrio's manse, and the shouts of the street vendors, so similar in all the cities she found herself begging and running. She saw a fiery flash of red and odoured the sweet smell of lemons. She heard the thunder and felt the insides of her mother's womb.

Everything she ever felt just exploded then. All the anger, and the need, and the contentness, and the pain, and the wonder, and the love, the grief, the awe, the sorrow, hate, hunger, coldness, warmness, and suddenly she wasn't sure whose feelings those were. She saw everything at once, every single moment happened since the beginning of time, without any perspective. She was everything. It was a feeling so strong and intense and overwhelming, like it was annulling her, inexorably fading her own consciousness in the totality of nothingness.

She became nothing.

* * *

It felt like eternity itself had passed, and then she blinked. That impending darkness was still there, but somehow it appeared as though there were tiny glimpses of light scattered in the sky. The Heart of Winter had disappeared, icy fragments scattered on the ground, and nothing else. She was still for a very long moment, abnormally aware of everything around her, the darkness, the glimpses of light, the air finally moving again, the frozen ground, her battered limbs. Then, she remembered she had to find him, and that they had to go back home, wherever it was.

He was still passed out when she found him, breathing faintly, his Valyrian sword destroyed in the impact with the Heart of Winter, only the hilt pressed tightly in his bloodied hands. She held him at her chest for the longest of times, crying hot tears on his cheeks, until he somehow started moving again, slowly regaining consciousness.

They clung to each other and cried together until their eyes went dry.

* * *

The dragons were dead, sacrificing themselves to beat the most terrifying kind of magic ever existed. The immense corpse of Drogon laid frozen, overcome by the coldness of Death. The pain Daenerys felt was dulled only by the thought that it was a permanent death.

They somehow didn't feel the cold anymore, or the hunger. Not much at least. It was a pang, a feeling of discomfort more than an actual need to eat. They slept on the cold ground, short uncomfortable naps, the only hint of warmth coming from their entangled bodies.

Coming back was hard, and long, and slow. They never talked, just kept walking following the landmarks, never leaving each other's hands. There was nothing to say.

* * *

They had no idea how much time had passed or how much land they had already traveled, when the thick darkness over their heads started to break, shatters of increasingly bright light finally meeting their eyes. They kept walking.

* * *

So much time had passed, when they glimpsed the remaining of the Wall in the distance. Entire moon turns, or perhaps even years. The light was brighter by the day, the nights increasingly shorter. It was the slowest of changes, but it was happening. Spring was coming.

They saw grass. Daenerys wasn't even sure she knew the colour green before that wondrous day. A childish sort of giddiness bubbled in her chest, and they laughed together, eyes shining with mirth. That night, they made love in the grass, and watched the stars until they fell asleep. 

When they met people, it was like her legs were finally giving in for good. They came to a small desolated village, recently reconstructed and full of toothless kids running around. There were a lot of kids around these days, one of the hunters said. Nothing like the end of the world to repopulate it quickly. He was a big man, bearded and battered and scarred, looking old over his age. But he smiled, and welcomed them, and offered them real food, and if any of them recognized the King and the Queen, they said nothing.

* * *

The more the sunlight kissed their skin, the more they talked about the future. It felt necessary, and somehow cathartic, and somehow annoying. The Iron Throne was destroyed when the bitch queen somehow managed to blow herself up in the Red Keep, but as for what happened since then, they had no idea. Word didn't travel so far North, especially after the Long Night. It just wasn't a priority.

They crossed village after village. The Lords and Ladies were an utmost rare sight, decimated by the endless sequence of wars that had bloodied Westeros for the last seven years. The smallfolks were managing as well as they could, organizing councils to take care of the slow but steady reconstruction. They didn't seem to need Kings and Queens anymore. The more she thought about it, the more she searched deep in her scarred heart, the more she found she just couldn't bring herself to care anymore. Winterfell was a ruin, King's Landing almost completely destroyed by the foolish wildfire. She found that she was glad that that ugly chair was finally gone forever. So much death and destruction came from it, she couldn't help but think it was for the best, that maybe that could be their legacy to the world: being the Last King and Queen, fulfilling their destiny by bringing an end to the Long Night and to the tyranny of men altogether, and then just rest. It was such an alien and refreshing thought... They did what they had to do. They saved the world, and they lost so much doing it. So many died, friends, and family, and her scaly children. She longed for peace.

* * *

They were in a fishermen village when they started to build their home. It wasn't as big as the castles they were used to, but they could hear the sound of the sea from their bedroom, and Jon painted the walls white and the door a bright red. They couldn't get lemon trees to grow this far North, but it didn't matter to her anymore. She didn't need anything else. She had him, and the silent sense of deep understanding only they could share. They had their children, and the innocence in their eyes to start healing their grieving hearts.

She didn't wish for anything else. 

She finally belonged.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Don't be a stranger, leave a comment! ;)


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